Junior's story

30 October 2018

I unfortunately have a sports-betting addiction. It’s hard to say that, but it’s true. I’m 26 years old and last night was another losing week after a loss of $3,600 in a single week.

It all began with my coworker who introduced me to his bookie. My coworker had been gambling for many years and he estimates his losses around $1,000,000. (Yup, I know, a million! Can you believe that? he’s only 37 years old too. As of now he’s stopped all kinds of gambling for about 2 months now, I’m very happy for him! We’ll continue to support each other.)

It all started around July 2018 for me (World Cup Season) today is the 29th of October 2018 and I’ve lost around $25,000 in 3 months. I will say this ... I haven’t lost my job, house, girlfriend, or anything major but I want to completely stop because at this rate I’m headed that direction. This sports betting is consuming my life, it’s taking my hard earned income away from me, it’s not good, the time I spend with my girlfriend also is being taken away. It makes me feel terrible in so many ways. Makes me feel depressed, ashamed, a loser, so many things. I don’t like this feeling. This feeling is killing me inside. I want my normal life back.

I have a pretty good job. I have a beautiful and supporting girlfriend that’s been with me for years, so why gamble? At first I started doing it for extra income. Like I mentioned, I have a pretty good job in sales and have been doing it for years. It sounded like an easy avenue for extra money. I wanted to be GREEDY! My job’s income wasn’t enough me I wanted MORE.

I did have 1–4 weeks where I won but the rest I lost. It quickly became an addiction for me. There was not a day where I wouldn’t gamble. You name it ... basketball, baseball, soccer, football, golf, any sport I could place bet on, 7 days a week, nonstop. After weeks and weeks of losing I was ready to give up and stop but all of a sudden my motive had changed instead of gambling for extra money I was gambling to get my losses back. TERRIBLE MISTAKE. I dug myself deeper and deeper week after week. I’ve quit once or twice before but came back to try and get a bit of my losses back – awful mistake.

Well TODAY I say NO MORE to sports betting or any source of gambling. ENOUGH is ENOUGH. Yes I lost around $25,000 and I’ll never see that money again but I rather accept defeat and take that loss as an awful learning experience than to lose all my savings and end up like other people in $0. I will move on forward and get my life back on track like before. It is is not fun. Yes there’s adrenaline and when you win you feel like you’re the king of the hill but it’s not worth going through this I promise. I hope others don’t go through what I did because it’s the worst feeling in the world to lose your hard earned $ to an addiction. Today is DAY #1 without my addiction. I know it won’t be easy it will be tough but I will get through this. I thank GOD I was able to wake up before it was too late. GOD BLESS everyone going through an addiction like this. Thank you for reading this. I hope my experience helps others facing this.